this weekend i finally feel like things are settled in here. on saturday i had my new washer and dryer delivered and installed which was just in time as i was almost out of clean undies. i also got the cable and the internet up and running and other than having to do some dmv stuff and buying another car (that is buying a second car, so far i’m keeping the s), things aren’t as frantic as they were when i showed up a week ago.

taka and jasmine and are doing well, and thanks to everyone who’s been going over and visiting them. taka sends me two pics a day, and i think i’ll have to make a page in the baby book of “my first 30 days in an iPhone” or something. i’m going to be back in la next weekend (and probably the next several weekends) so if anyone wants to get together to grab a beer or something let me know.

the job is going great. i’m mostly just in training for the next few weeks so it’s a really easy transition. but most all of the people are really friendly and very smart and while i’m sure the excitement will wear off, i actually kinda look forward to going into work in the morning (not that i have anything else to do around here). i have found my supermarkets and post offices and some really great restaurants. i just can’t wait until the wife gets here so i can share these places with someone.

so much has been going on lately that just thinking about trying to blog about it seems overwhelming, but right now things are calm and i thought i’d bring things up to speed.

last saturday i picked up a moving truck, loaded it up with all my stuff and me, eric and ben drove it all to texas. it turns out texas is pretty far away. we hit the road at around 3pm on saturday with a goal of about 500 miles per day over 3 days. unfortunately, traffic was slow and the budget rental truck was pretty unstable, so we were cruising at only about 55mph most of the way. i spent most of the time following in the s2000, which turned out not to be a comfortable cross-country driver. by around midnight on the first day we ended up in chandler, arizona, only a little bit east of phoenix and about a hundred or so miles short of our first day’s goal. i spent the night in the truck and the guys slept in a motel, but we all only got about 4 or so hours of sleep before we were back on the road.

on sunday, we had an extra 100 miles make up, so we headed out early. figuring we had plenty of time, we made plenty of stops. we stopped at best buy for a while while ben bought a new dslr, we stopped at hat shops, steak houses and other random places. well at about 10pm (we left at 8am), we were about a hundred or so miles east of el paso and exhausted. these roads had no light and there was nobody anywhere. the guys started to get worried about me since i was just alone in the s, by myself and obviously weary. we had walkie talkies and i told them to just keep pushing on, but they insisted i take a break. when we pulled off in some town called kent, i imagined they were gonna say lets just crash here for the night and make it up tomorrow. turns out they just wanted to switch cars and let me take a break riding passenger in the truck for a while. you would have had to have been there, but there was something about us all being that tired and deciding to press on for another 170 miles that was just kinda an amazing show of will and strength. we finally made it into odessa a little after midnight and crashed at a motel 6.

finally on monday we were caught up to our schedule of 500 miles a day but i had to be in the leasing office by 6pm to get the keys for the apartment. it seemed that we had plenty of time, but we had the same thought about the day before so i didn’t want to take any chances. i left at 7am in the s2000 (speed limits on these roads were 80mph) and had a good, fast, uneventful drive all the way home. the guys showed up an hour or two later in the truck, we unloaded, dropped off the truck and went out to get some bbq. the guys flew out at 6am the next morning and i spent the next 2 days unpacking.

so now i’m back here in LA on baby watch. we’re due on tuesday and have been taking lots of walks and playing wii fit trying to get this baby action going. the doctor said if she doesn’t naturally start having the baby by the 26th that he’d induce labor, although at our appointment tomorrow, i’m going to ask that he induce on the 23rd if nothing’s started yet, because 1. i bet the hospital staff is going to be thin over the 3 day weekend and 2. i need to be back in texas by june 1st so i want to spend as much time with the wife+baby as i can.

so lots of things going on. once i do go down to texas, i’ll probably fly back at least every other weekend until taka moves down with the baby so i’ll still be around for a while.

i’ve had lots of things to blog about but i’ve been too busy to write about it, but thought i’d catch my blog up now that i have a few moments of downtime in the hotel. since i announced i was moving, i’ve been going out to dinner with friends and family pretty much every night, and i’ve been slammed at work transitioning out. taka and i’ve been packing up the apartment and might move as early as next week.

taka’s going to be staying at my mom’s house through the pregnancy, and after this week, i’ll be staying with her there too, and will come down here for good either the 25th or june 1st, depending on when the little one arrives. i finally met the group of people i’ll be working with down here and i’m really excited. these people are friendly, young and smart and a totally different atmosphere than where i was. the offices are also very fancy high tech with doors that unlock as you walk through corridors and very trendy designs. everyone i’ve run into since i landed here has been really polite, it’s all very surreal.

things have been happening so fast that big things seem like small things in comparison. we’re due in like 2 weeks!!! we had the family baby shower on sunday and it was really nice. almost all of my family and eric and tina (the god parents) came down, and we really received almost everything on our registry, with gift certificates to buy the last few things that we still need.

amazingly, eric and i sold the boat in just a couple of days! we sold it for $1000 less than we bought it for, so not a bad return on investment on something that we got so much use out of over 4 or so years. while it was sad to see it go, it was the second happiest day in our boat ownership. not to mention my mom was happy to have her driveway back.

i imagine it’ll be a while before i’m back to my regular blogging, but i plan to make a correspondence post here and there. i’ll also keep up on the twittering, so you can follow me there.

kentomatic on twitter

long story short, the ishi’s are moving to texas. i accepted a position at my company’s corporate office in irving, which is in northern dallas county. i won’t go into details online, but i can tell you guys about it over the beers you’ll each buy me before i leave.

i’m gonna be here all of next week and then down there the following week, and then back up here to get the move ready. hopefully while i’m down there i’ll be able to find a place so i won’t have to go back and forth too many times. taka’s going to move into my mom’s house and will stay here in socal for the birth and probably for a month or so afterwards and i’ll try to spend as much time up here as i can. both her and i want to keep things as familiar and easy as possible for both her and the baby. of course we haven’t figured out all of the logistics, but talk about throwing gasoline on a fire.